Kampala mayor, KCCA clash over park vendors
KCCA Executive Director Jennifer Musisi. Photo by Rachel Mabala
KAMPALA- Kampala Central Division mayor Charles Musoke Sserunjogi and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) officials are at logger heads over a decision to allow vendors to operate in the old and new taxi parks.
Despite KCCA banning vendors from operating in the two parks three months ago in a move they said was meant to decongest the city, Ms Serunjogi on Friday gave the vendors a go ahead to operate in the park. Mr Sserunjogi wrote a letter to the vendors under their body of the New and Old Taxi Park Traders Co-operative Society, authorising them to operate in the parks without being displaced.
“…as you are all aware, we are trying to bring back trade order in the city, and take off vendors from the city streets, as we help the city dwellers to enable them achieve vision 2040. In a bid to remove vendors from the streets, permission is given to you to operate inside the new and old taxi parks,” the letter dated September 22, reads in part.
In the letter, Mr Sserunjogi contends that the vendors ought to work along with KCCA law enforcement officers and that they should be registered in both parks and submit a report to his office about the exercise.
He warned them against defying park authorities and ordered them to have 100 vendors in each park.
KCCA spokesperson Peter Kaujju, in a recent interview, told Daily Monitor that all vendors in the city are supposed to operate in gazzetted areas but not parks.
“We have never allowed any vendor to carry out their businesses in these two parks because it is against the law. We gazzetted Usafi Market and others like Wandegeya to accommodate all street vendors,” he said.
Illegal move
While responding to the mayor’s letter to the vendors, KCCA deputy spokesperson, Mr Robert Kalumba, said he was surprised about this new development, saying iti s illegal.
The chairperson of the vendors, Mr Sulaiman Kiyaga, faulted KCCA law enforcement officers for confiscating their merchandise yet they operate in parks and not streets.
